Native American Day

Ashley celebrated Native Americans at school on Friday in honor of Thanksgiving. This is the costume we came up with. She made the headband and earrings herself. The other kids wanted their pictures taken before school as well. I'm not sure why Katelyn's class didn't celebrate Thanksgiving, but that is TCA, I guess. That school is strange to me sometimes. We are excited for Thanksgiving break this week and for no school. Hans has Thursday and Friday off. We are planning on eating our feast on Thursday and bowling on Friday, our two traditions. I'm not sure what else we will do. I am teaching a lot of yoga. Anyone want to come to a class with me this week?

Halloween Fun

We had a very fun-filled Halloween. We went to the pumpkin patch (see earlier post), carved pumpkins, made and ate chocolate chip pumpkin bread (yummy for all despite it being free of gluten), went to the ward trunk-or-treat, went to Monument's Saturday trick-or-treating, went to a Halloween party, went trick-or-treating to friend's houses on Saturday night, and handed out candy to our Sunday night trick-or-treaters. I think, perhaps, we did too much. I also had pre-school at my house the week of Halloween so we got to make ghosts, spiders, witch hat cookies, learn Halloween songs, and sing our songs for moms and dads at a short costume party on our last day of school. Justin has a great group of pre-school friends. I enjoy getting to know the kids and teaching them at my house. They are excited to learn and well-behaved for the most part. Most of the pictures are from our Monument day with the Conleys. It was so warm and beautiful. One of the places we stopped by had games for the kids where they could earn prizes. It was very exciting. Mia quickly learned to say, "Trick-or-treat and I can't have gluten." It's cute to hear her say this. Luckily there is a ton of candy that is gluten-free. I was very happy to take down Halloween decorations and have the candy disappear. Halloween is still lingering though since Hans decided to do a candy buy back at the office. It turned out to be great marketing but now he has about 100 lbs. of candy sitting in his office. The kids and I stop by there frequently. I have had too many lunches consisting of m&ms and tootsie rolls. Gross, I know. I am anxious for him to send the candy away. His hygienists are going to Africa for a missions trip in January so it will go with them. I may eat 10 more lbs. before then. Anyone want some candy?

Pictures

Here are some pictures of my beautiful kids. Notice Katelyn's lost front tooth. She is really excited to be able to sing about wanting her front teeth for Christmas in her school music program. It was so exciting to have lost this tooth for everyone. Mia still expresses gratitude to Heavenly Father in every prayer for Katelyn losing a tooth. She used to say this in repeat in her prayers until we told her she could only say it once. So now she prays, "And thanks that Katelyn could lose her tooth one time." Makes me smile every time. Also notice Katelyn wearing a silly outfit. She brings a lot of joy and laughter to our home and I am so grateful to her for that. It's interesting since she is the quietest out of our home. She is quite shy and reserved. I am happy she has our home to let loose. She is really fun. Notice Justin's "I can be honest" headband. He has great primary teachers. The top two pictures are of the girls in their pretty Costco tutu skirts. They love to dance in them. I am happy we have an empty dining room to use as a dance floor. It gets much more use this way then if I had a dining room table in there. Last picture to notice is of Ashley's hair. We have been you tubing how to do hair. This picture is of the rosette buns. It's fun to have this time with her in the morning to do fun hair. She loves it and so do I.

Mia's Yucky Song

Mia is quite the budding composer/songwriter. She is often heard singing some sort of cute narration of her day. She also likes to sit down at the piano to make up beautiful music.